MDTP - FINAL Ph. D. THESIS AND ABSTRACT

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FINAL Ph. D. THESIS AND ABSTRACT

CHECKLIST

At Least One Month Prior to Your Final Defense

Access important information from the Graduate School about deadlines, defending and writing your dissertation.

When you and your advisor believe that you re ready to do your final defense and thesis, contact the program office, room 1326 Microbial Sciences, to obtain a copy of the "PHD Warrant Request" form. Complete the form and return it so that it may be sent to and processed through the Graduate School, which will issue your warrant and send it back to the program office.

Three Weeks before Your Defense

Contact the person in your department who is responsible for room scheduling to reserve a space for the presentation and defense. Next, contact the program office (micro@bact.wisc.edu or via telephone at 265-0689) with your seminar title, time, and room location, so that we may prepare and send out a final thesis notice to the campus community.

The Day of or Before Your Defense

Stop by the program office for your warrant and title page. The forms will be marked as to where you need signatures from your committee members. These must be returned to the program office for copying, which will then be released for you to turn into the PhD. office in the Graduate School.

You must also inform your payroll person when you turn in your thesis in order to be removed from the payroll.

We would also like to know your future plans, such as a postdoctoral position or job, as well as means of contacting you for future alumni mailings.

GENERAL INFORMATION

To allow everyone adequate time to review your material, your thesis should be handed out to your committee at least 6 weeks in advance of your defense date. The presentation and defense of the Ph.D. thesis will follow the usual procedures of the Graduate School. The Graduate School states that the thesis must be the candidate's own work. It may be the result of research enterprises in which others have collaborated, but in those cases the candidate is required to present a substantial portion that represents his/her own contribution. Any work in the thesis that was completed by someone other than the author must be clearly indicated as such.

The formal details for your thesis are outlined in the "Doctoral Dissertation and Degree Completion Requirements" handbook prepared by the Graduate School. When you have in hand the final version of your thesis, you must make an appointment and take it to the Graduate School-Ph.D. Office for approval. Afterwards you will be sent to the A.W. Peterson Building to pay a mandatory publication fee for the doctoral dissertation. The University uses the facilities of University Microfilms International to provide for publication of the thesis on microfilm and for publication of the abstract of your dissertation in the monthly publication "Dissertation Abstracts." It is for this reason that the thesis you take to the Memorial Library must be unbound (but may be on standard paper). Each Ph.D. student pays the cost of microfilming the dissertation and publication of the abstract at the A.W. Peterson Building, which will also cover the library bindery costs. If you wish to copyright your document, there will be an additional fee payable at the Memorial Library.

The Program does not require that degree candidates provide a copy of their thesis, but a copy is appreciated. However, it is a good idea to provide a bound courtesy copy for your major professor. You may want to check with your lab's departmental office for up-to-date contract binding vendors.

FINAL ORAL EXAM: DEFENSE

You should not take your final exam until all other requirements for the degree have been satisfied. At least three weeks prior to your exam, a warrant request must be submitted to the Graduate School for their approval via the program office. The form will list the faculty members that have agreed to serve on your Thesis Committee. If you change the membership of the committee before the actual exam, another warrant request must be filled out. At your prompting, the Program office will file the paperwork for you and hold onto the approved warrant until the day of your exam. Remember to schedule an appropriate conference room for the final defense with the representative of the building where you wish to present and defend.

The final examination is oral and will deal primarily with the thesis; knowledge of the general field of microbiology and the minor must be demonstrated.